Fast acting switches, which are light in weight and responsive to a light touch or pressure, such as a popple switch, are widely used in applications where those features are considered an advantage. One such application is in portable devices such as wireless communication devices. These popple and other similar switches may be used to perform an on/off function, one example being to turn on the microphone in a transmitter or to turn on the transmitter. In the operation of a switch, a hundred milliseconds or more may elapse between the time the switch begins to move to its "on" state and the time the function is activated by the switch. This elapsed time goes unused and other functions cannot be started until the switch is connected in its "on" state and the device is made to proceed through its preprocessing functions preliminary to the start of the main function.